


A Ghoul Named Perry

by Raptorusrex



Series: Named Ones [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Drama, Everyone Is Gay, Fae & Fairies, Fluff, Ghouls, Hades and Persephone, Horror, LGBT, M/M, Monsters, Paranormal, Romance, Witches, and yes hades and persephone make an appearance, but it's a subplot, everyone is sad, fey, i can't control my love for them, like I'm not kidding, pretty much, the Fair Folk, young adult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-30 17:34:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorusrex/pseuds/Raptorusrex
Summary: Perry Azur is dead.On March 10th, 1958, the day before his nineteenth birthday, he is murdered in his own bed.The funeral is a quiet affair. He is buried in a modest cemetery in the South of Wales, with only three people coming to say their farewells.The murderer is never found.Fifty-six years later, in 2014, Perry Azur crawls out of his own grave. His waking marks the beginning of the rise of the ghouls. He is left with a million questions and no answers. Who murdered him? Who brought him back? Who is sending Fey after him?And what the hell is the Grey Age?





	1. The First

Perry knew something was wrong when he woke up in a grave. His eyes flashed open. Darkness, everywhere. His breathing grew heavier as he turned his head from side to side, trying and failing to see something in the darkness. Gasping, he raised his hands, forcing them up against the wood above him in a desperate attempt to free himself. This space was too enclosed, too claustrophobic. He felt panic rising in him like vomit. He didn't have a weapon. There was no way he could escape with his bare hands; he'd be trapped forever, breathing but not living, dead but alive. He could remember being stabbed, could remember a pressing weight in the darkness. He was dead. He had been dead, for Christ's sake. How was he now alive?

_Out. I have to get out._ Nothing else mattered: the crisis of what he was could wait for another time. The decades he'd spent down here in the darkness fell apart to nothing. Faces melted; places changed. He just had to survive.

He couldn't hold off the panicking for much longer. A scream rose in his throat, but he couldn't make noise, couldn't speak. His hands curled into fists, beating against the wooden ceiling over and over again, until he could feel liquid trickling down his knuckles. Blood. Not blood. Water? Sweat? He gasped and heaved, pressing his hands against his face for a moment. He had to be calm. Had to be sensible. How would he free himself if all he could do was freak out? Perry breathed into his hands, trying to remember what he'd been told in the dead land. _Breathe in for four seconds. Hold for eight. Release for seven._ He continued doing this until his breathing regulated again, and then came the second attempt.  


Another punch. Another push. Another hit. The lid wouldn't budge. It wasn't too surprising. If he was six feet underground, there was no way in hell he'd have the strength to push all of that weight off him. He needed something else. Another tactic. Something clever.

_You won't survive_ , he heard the ghosts hiss. _You have to use your strength. All of it; every ounce. The human body is capable of crushing bone. Stop holding yourself back._

Yes. He had to stop panicking, but he also had to stop rationalising this. This was not rational. He'd been buried underground. He'd died. He could still feel the knife buried in his mouth, could still feel it butchering his tongue. The blood came back. Filled his mouth. No escape.

He wasn't going to give up now; anxiety would not allow him rest. Perry forced his body to the side, wriggling as much as the coffin would allow. It was too shallow for kicking, but perhaps if he just managed to turn, he'd be able to push up against the lid of the coffin. It was a stretch, but he had nothing else. No other solution. It was this or nothing.

He continued to wriggle, ignoring the burning sensation in his muscles. He wasn't used to moving; not after years, perhaps decades, of passiveness. It would take a miracle for this to work.

And yet, he managed it. He turned, twisted on his side. The lid bit into his shoulder, pressing down hard on his skin and bones. He could feel it scraping, and realised with a start that this would probably give him yet another scar. Hissing with effort and pain, Perry forced himself to make the full turn, until he was lying on his stomach in the shallow, claustrophobic coffin. There. He'd made it.

He took a moment to catch his breath, turning his head to one side so that he could breathe. There was barely any air in this coffin, and so it was more difficult than he'd imagined. 

He was inhaling must and decay, allowing the rotting air to burrow itself into his lungs. It hardly mattered. He'd already died once; did further problems matter?

Perry forced his hands to ball into fists against the base of the coffin, ignoring the pain in his arms as they were trapped under his full weight, and the weight of six feet of dirt. He forced his weight up, using his whole body to fight against the lid of the coffin, against the dirt. He was immediately flattened again, panting like a dehydrated dog. He couldn't get up. He couldn't do it. There was six feet of mud, compacted in the years it had aged, locking him in this coffin. What else could he do? Was he going to be trapped here for eternity, trapped in death whilst living?

Suddenly, a change. Perry heard a strange noise, almost like a giant boulder being thrown into a building. Another gasp escaped him, and he covered his ears with his shaking hands. The noise lasted for what seemed like an eternity, but was, in reality, ten seconds. 

Something in the atmosphere changed. Perry couldn't breathe air, but his surroundings seemed less claustrophobic, as though a huge weight had been lifted.

A huge weight.

He lifted himself up on his hands, trying again. To his amazement, the lid above him gave way. It was opening. The lid of his coffin was opening and he'd escaped.

Mud and dirt flooded his face, invading his nostrils and mouth and eyes. He squealed in surprise, quickly closed his lips and eyes against the onslaught. Once the mud had finished invading the coffin, Perry forced himself to stand in spite of his aching body, gazing at his way to freedom with dark, doubtful eyes. Six feet. He was only a little bit taller; it would be quite difficult to climb out of his grave. He was a statue. His body was so stiff, he could barely twitch his fingers, let alone climb up six feet. The sky was filled with darkness, but the sight of the moon and stars staring down at him was enough to render him speechless. How different it was to the dead land. How eerie.

Perry gritted his teeth and closed the coffin so that he could stand on top. He wasn't used to using his body anymore; it felt odd and alien, like he was in someone else's skin. He hadn't moved for so long. Hadn't breathed. Once he'd climbed on top of the coffin, he took a few breaths of the cool night air, his chest heaving as he tried to ignore the poisonous exhaustion seeping into his bones. So tired. So, so tired. Perry looked down at his hands, amazed to see them shaking so violently. Amazed to see that they were still hands. He'd been underground for years - he didn't even know how many. Surely his skin would have rotted off by now? But here it was, pale and sickly and covered in purple-black blotches, but otherwise normal. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. His head ached.

Once he'd caught his breath, Perry began to climb. His hands did not obey his mind's commands, and it took him a while to come to grips with the handholds in the dirt around him. He pushed himself up. Grabbed the stones. Felt around the dirt wall for a place to hold his hands and feet. _Up, up, up_. His hand slipped, his foot slipped, and he fell back onto the coffin. Gasping. Winded. Perry closed his eyes against the spray of dirt in his face, opened them again, standing back up. He would get up. He would get out of this grave.

It took seven attempts for Perry to get out of the ground. In the movies, they made grave-digging, and crawling out of graves, look easy. In reality, he felt like he would never be able to breathe properly again.

By the time he'd finally managed to push himself up into the outside world, Perry couldn't move a single muscle. He allowed his body to fall, allowed the grassy ground to catch him. It was frosted and cool against his back; idly, he realised that it was probably winter. He lay there in the grass, in the ground of a graveyard, and stared up at the stars. There was a particularly bright one just below the moon. Perhaps it was a planet. Venus. Mars. Or maybe it was just a bright star.

There was a woman standing close by. Tall, in a purple blouse, black jeans and tall boots. She was beautiful, with her cheekbones high and prominent and her eyes slanted, glinting like a fox's. She had a shovel pushed into the dirt, and leaned on it without a care in the world, spare hand low in her pocket.

“You all right?” she said.

Perry stared harder. He wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to react, or what he was supposed to do. He opened his mouth, closed it again. He frowned. “What?”

His voice was hoarse and husky. Speaking was an odd sensation after so long in silence. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. He didn't like it. Everything felt so different already, and he'd only been awake for a few hours, fighting against the weight of the dirt.

"I said, 'you all right?',” she repeated. “You're looking a bit...shocked.”

He stared at her blankly. Any and all thoughts had abandoned his mind. He had to crane his neck to look at her, but his gaze was sceptical.

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. “How?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You'll have to be a little bit more specific than that, darling. How do we exist? How do we live? How will the world end?”

He blinked. Slow, bleary. He could barely understand a word she said.

“Uh...” he said.

“Yeah, me too,” she answered. Which made no sense.

He continued to stare at her like she was an alien from outer space, and at this point, it wouldn't surprise him if she was. She stared back at him with a permanent smirk on her face. She looked like some sort of ancient queen, standing above him like that. A pharaoh, perhaps. He was staring up at a Cleopatra lookalike.

Then she said, in the same, grandstanding voice:

“I don't know how, darling. I just heard scrabbling underground, and tried to help. So here I am.” She peered at him, frowning slightly. “So. Are you a ghoul?”

“A ghoul?” he repeated blankly.

“A ghoul,” she agreed. “Y'know. You were either buried alive and somehow managed to stay alive for long enough to claw your way out of the dirt, or you're a ghoul. It's one or the other. So which is it? Did you die?”

He struggled to remember. He wondered what a ghoul was.

“Yes,” answered Perry. “I...I was...stabbed. Someone tried to stab me in the chest, but something...something happened. And they stabbed me in the mouth instead. They didn't mean to, but...”

Perry lifted his head, pointing to the scars on his mouth and chin. He could still remember the sensations; the pain. The weight of his killer, bearing down on him as the murderer straddled his sleeping body. It wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to remember. In the dead land, he'd been told to forget. 

_Dwelling on death is never good for the living_ , Scilti had said. _Live. Love. Forget._

So he'd forgotten. The memory had faded into nothing, and his dead life had become the dead land, with all its blue hues and sad wanderers. Now, however, he had nothing but death to focus on.

“Ouch. Looks like it hurt,” the woman observed. “So, darling, I hate to bring it up, but...your grave says 1939-1958.”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“1958,” she said again. The emphasis she put on the year made him frown. “Darling, you've been dead for fifty-six years.”

He felt dizzy. Sick. Tired. He wanted to go back to sleep and pretend none of this had happened. Instead, he sat up from the floor, gazing at his grave with eyes larger than the moon hanging so high in the blackness. The stranger was right, as he knew she was; he'd died in 1958. His grave defined him:

 

_Percival Gideon Azur_  
_Beloved Son and Friend_  
_1939-1958_

 

That was all he'd been allowed to be. Percival Gideon Azur, the son of a mother. If he'd lived longer, would he have been different? A lover? A father? Perhaps even a brother; his mother had been very young when she'd had him. But no. Perry was a son, nothing more. A dead, beloved son. And he could have been so much more.

“Hey.” The woman's voice grew gentler as she watched him stare, his lips parted in a soft, silent scream. Despite all the grandstanding, she apparently recognised pain. “It's OK. You'll be OK. Do you have anyone you can go to? Anyone who might still be alive?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “Ma was all I had."

Would she be alive? Would she even remember him if she was?

The woman bit her lip, looking around her as though waiting for someone to appear and give her some advice. No one did. The woman removed her hands from her pockets, extending one towards him. “Stand up, poppet. Let's get that dirt off you, shall we?”

He was silent as she helped him stand. Silent as she brushed the mud from his dire, black suit. Perry didn't speak or move as the woman smiled brightly. A valiant attempt, he supposed, at making him feel better. But it didn't work like that. He was in another century. It hurt so much he couldn't breathe, and yet, breathing was the very reason he was experiencing this. If he'd taken that last breath in 1958 and stuck with it, he wouldn't have to go through another century. But he hadn't. He'd woken up again, and here he was. Living. Breathing. He wondered whether his mother was alive.

A surge of bitterness appeared in his heart. He should be decaying. And he wasn't. Why wasn't he a rotten corpse? Why wasn't he one of the zombies in one of Christopher's stupid, wonderful comic books?

The woman reached out to squeeze his shoulder. She wore so many rings on her fingers; he was slightly surprised that she wasn't being dragged off by every magnet in the world.

“If it's been...if it's been fifty-six years...” He spoke slowly. His brain felt like broken clockwork; the hours and minutes were broken, and he was left with nothing but a confusion of springs. It had been fifty-six years. He was a broken doll, thrown this way and that, abused in the mouths of dogs. He couldn't think properly. He didn't understand.

“If it's been fifty-six years,” he repeated, “that would make it 2014.”

“That's right,” the woman confirmed, nodding her head. “At least you remember basic maths.”

“2014,” he breathed. He wanted to scream, but screaming wasn't practical. He needed to be practical. Still " the idea of screaming was attractively hysteric. “Fifty-six years.” He stared at the woman, wide-eyed. “My family.”

He thought of his mother. He thought of Tobias. He thought of Christopher.

They couldn't all be dead, but surely they were all old? They'd all lived their lives. Without him. Was he alone now? He wanted to go back to sleep. Wanted to hide in the dead land. Wanted to hear the reassuring tones of Scilti's voice.

“I'm sorry,” said the woman. And she sounded sorry. She sounded like someone who understood.

“What do I do now?” Perry whispered. His breath formed in the air. His fingers were frozen. “I have nowhere to go.”

She nodded as though she knew this would be a problem, and raised a perfect eyebrow at him. “Well, hey. I've got room in my apartment. You can stay there until you find somewhere else.”

He stared at her. “Really? Just like that?” he asked.

She shrugged. The hands were back in the pockets again. “Why not? I've been looking for a new room-mate. My last one stole my tortoise. I turned her into a rat. It was a good time.”

“I don't even know you,” he protested, frowning as he realised what she'd said. “Wait. You turned her into a rat?”

She bowed, with all the flamboyance of a terrible magician. Her arms spread as though she was preparing to take flight, and she leaned so far down her nose was almost touching the floor. Perry just stared at her, astonished. He'd seen nothing like this before; nothing like her. She was quite frightening, in her own, manic way.

“The Great Witch, Jarvia Knot, at your service,” she said, in the most dramatic voice she'd used all evening. Which was saying something. He'd never heard someone so booming before.

He was also fairly certain she'd just called herself a witch, but he had dirt in his ears, so it was probably just his imagination.

Jarvia Knot straightened up, flashing him an eyeliner wink. “You may call me Jarvia the Magnificent, or Jarvia the Bold, or Jarvia the Supremely Awesome Witch.”

“How about just Jarvia?” he offered.

“Just Jarvia works, too,” she grinned. “So what do you say, ghoulie? You've got nowhere to go; I've got a room. It's a pretty damned perfect arrangement, if you ask me. I'm the last surviving witch in the world, and you're the first ghoul I've seen for a couple of centuries. Maybe it's better that we stick together.”

He stared at her, feeling slightly dubious. On one hand, Jarvia Knot was a stranger who was definitely on the mad side. On the other, Perry really did have nowhere else to go. She'd called herself a witch again, he realised. 

"If I come to live with you," he said cautiously, "I'll need to know why you keep calling yourself a witch."

Jarvia smiled as though this amused her, leaning back on the spade. "Because I'm a witch. Why else?"

For a moment, Perry simply stared. Then, as the meaning of the words dawned on him, he murmured, “But witches...don't exist.”

"We don't?" Jarvia challenged. Her eyes were all too knowing, all too ancient. "Then how do you think you got out of that grave?"

He couldn't help blinking, staring at her in bewilderment. Of course. The noise. The feeling of a change, as though a huge weight had been lifted from atop the grave. How else had he managed to open the lid of his coffin? How else had he managed to escape?

"That was you?" he asked. 

"Naturally," she replied. "You've just crawled out of your own grave like a zombie in a TV programme, kid. I wouldn't spend too much time doubting the existence of witches if I were you."

She had a point. He'd turned into a ghoul, and he was questioning witchcraft. Now that she'd put it that way, it did sound like rather a stupid reaction.

He sighed. There was no point in being indecisive. He knew what he wanted. She knew, too. It was better to get it over with now, before she changed her mind.

“Fine,” he said. “I'll stay with you. I don't really have any other choice, do I?”

Jarvia smiled at him. It was a genuine smile, though her eyes had a strange, unreadable emotion in them. “You can pay rent through labour. I need some help with my job. You look like you could be a helping hand.”

He frowned. Perhaps her words should have unsettled him, but they didn’t. There was something about her that made him think she only ever said what she meant. “What would this 'helping' entail?” he asked.

“Oh, you know,” she waved a hand. “Nothing too serious. Nothing involving blood sacrifice, so I wouldn't worry about that, if that's what you were thinking.”

“It wasn't,” said Perry.

“Wonderful. Then we should get on marvellously, don't you think?” She paused, raising an eyebrow. “It's nice to meet you, Percival.”

“Perry,” he corrected. “My name is Perry. I hate ‘Percival’. It sounds stupid.”

She shook his hand, grinning. “Then it's nice to meet you, Perry. Welcome to the twenty-first century."


	2. Do You Need a Hand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for slight gore in this chapter.

The South Keep was, of course, open. It was a shop tucked midway down an alleyway behind the main stores, and inside was always, always dark. In the window, there was a tiny hanging sign informing visitors that it was open, accompanied by a marionette of a witch. In the window were a few little pots of glitter and more puppets with cracked, expressionless faces. There was a reason the South Keep was so secretive, and even after a year of visiting the place, Perry didn't like it.

Another ghoul had risen. Perry was the first ghoul in seven hundred years. Before him, ghouls had been classed as extinct. His existence was an anomaly. 

But the existence of another ghoul? That was more than an anomaly. That was more than a coincidence. Somebody was doing this deliberately. But who? Why? What was going on?

Only the Sisters of the South Keep would know the answers.

Jarvia glanced at Perry, a gaze that he’d come to translate as: We’re going to have to be careful if this is going to work. He understood. They’d come here on numerous occasions within the past year. For Jarvia’s work. For Jarvia. For Perry, sometimes. They’d been trying to avoid coming here for the past month, but they really couldn’t put it off any longer. 

The information they had wouldn’t wait.

With a sigh of resignation, Perry nodded. Jarvia braced herself and opened the door, wincing at the twinkling of the bell announcing their presence. 

As they walked in, one of the marionettes hanging from the ceiling brushed the top of Perry's head, and he shuddered. He didn't know what it was about puppets, but there was something inherently wrong about them. 

Shadows danced around him like a bizarre show; he could feel the cold seeping into his skin. It smelled vaguely of vinegar and something else – something rotting. He wrinkled his nose, shuddering as he pulled his coat tighter around his slender frame. 

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered.

A low, female voice came from somewhere near the counter at the front of the room: “Visitors this late at night can mean only one thing…could it be? Is it he, is it she? Here again to buy secrets? Naughty! The Keep isn’t one for giving…”

Perry swallowed, his body trembling. He knew that voice – of course he did. It was the voice of Ayri, the woman who ran the shop alongside her twin sister, Noz.

“But it is!” Noz whispered into the darkness of the shop – only her voice came from right behind them, her breath chilling the back of Perry's neck. “Here they are, here they are, here to take our trade!”

Without warning, Noz stroked two freezing cold fingers across his throat to his collarbone, a touch that made him flinch violently away from her. Discomfort spread through him like fire. Ayri and Noz didn't exactly know the meaning of the words “personal space”. This wouldn't be the first time they'd touched him without warning, and it probably wouldn't be the last. He hated it when they touched him. It was disgusting to feel their cold, dead fingers poke and prod at him.

_You’re dead, too_ , the little voice at the back of his head hissed. _Hypocrite. Hypocrite._

The Sisters materialised in front of them, their grins so wide, their skeletal faces looked like they were splitting. The sisters looked quite odd, cast in the emerald light of the candles they were holding. They were short and haggard, with cloaks hiding their bodies from public view. Only their faces were shown, skeletal faces with gaping, empty eye sockets where their eyes should be. Calling them blind was a ridiculous understatement. In fact, calling them anything was an understatement; they were not human. These creatures could not be defined by simple words, in any language known to humankind; these creatures were layered and complex, with a million different tales and a million different lives to recount and claim as their own. These creatures were not for the eyes of mortals to determine.

They were staring at them. 

Without thinking, Perry moved closer to Jarvia, trying to take comfort in her presence. She knew how to bargain with these creeps. With her, he was safe.

“You only come when you want something, friends,” Noz whispered hoarsely. “So...”

“What is it that you want?” Ayri finished. “Come, tell us. Tell Auntie Ayri...”

Jarvia glanced at Perry, raising an eyebrow. Its meaning was clear. _Your turn._

Perry cleared his throat. He needed to sound confident. If they could hear the anxiety oozing into his voice, they’d sense the weakness in him.

“Something…something has happened,” he said. He struggled to keep his voice neutral. He wouldn’t let them win. Couldn’t. 

“As you undoubtedly already know,” Jarvia added.

“Last year, I woke up as a ghoul,” continued Perry. He felt slightly more confident now that he’d already spoken. At least he wasn’t speaking into the silence. “A month ago, someone else did the same. A woman called Mira Leigh. We want to know who did it. Who brought her back, and why? Is it deliberate? Is someone trying to bring ghouls back?”

“So many questions!” chuckled Noz.

“So many answers,” Perry countered. He crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to stand here and listen to their riddles. He’d come for answers, and answers he’d get. He hadn’t spent the past year searching for them to give up when he had a lead, however slight. “We know you know. Give us the answers we need.”

He couldn't see them, since the shop was still so dark, but he knew they were smiling. Of course they were. Perry was rebelling against them, but he was playing to their tune. He and Jarvia were little more than the marionettes floating around their heads. They were toys to the Sisters. All humans were.

“Well?” Ayri demanded impatiently. “Tell him, sister!”

Noz giggled. “Payment!” she cried. “We want payment for your gift!”

Perry and Jarvia exchanged a glance, though it was rather difficult to see one another in the darkness. They knew not to trust the Sisters. Jarvia herself had had a long history with them, and she'd constantly warned Perry about their manipulative tricks before entering the shop. Once, she'd told him how she'd almost ended up selling her soul to the strange twins – a consequence of not listening closely enough to their riddles and whispers. Now, he knew better.

“What's the payment?” Jarvia inquired. She looked casual, leaning against the wall with her ankles crossed. But in her eyes, a fire blazed. It was a challenge.

“Simple!” cried Noz.

“Very simple,” Ayri agreed.

“We just want...”

“Percival!”

Perry shouted in protest, taking several steps away from them. “No,” he hissed. “Back the hell off.”

Jarvia moved off the wall, immediately lurching forwards with her hands at the ready. Soft purple smoke began to pulsate around her hands, a breathing monster of magic.

The threat was already obvious. Her growl of, “You just try to take him,” only added to the defensive response.

“The tigress defends her cub!” cackled Ayri. “Goodness! Goodness! Goodness!”

“Goodness,” Noz agreed.

“You didn’t even let us finish our sentence, you cruel tigress. Down, girl!”

“Down, girl!”

Ayri raised her hairy little hand, clicking her fingers. At once, the magical smoke surrounding Jarvia vanished into nothing. One of the few candles they had burning went out, leaving Perry and Jarvia in dark ignorance. 

The Sisters had responded with a threat of their own. They stood staring at their clients, their twin faces completely expressionless. Once again, Perry pulled his coat closer around his body. Once again, Jarvia’s eyes were blazing.

“We want Percival,” Noz said again.

This time, neither Perry nor Jarvia responded.

“To do something for us,” continued Ayri.

“To drink something. And methinks he knows what!” snickered Noz. “You want feeding, don't you, ghoulie?” 

Perry flinched at the use of the word 'ghoulie'. Somehow, it felt wrong to hear it from them. When Jarvia said it, it was affectionate. When they said it, it was putting him in his place – reminding him of his own inhumanity. 

“So it's a win-win situation!” Ayri continued. “You drink. We give. It's simple!”

Perry scowled. It was never that easy. “And what, exactly, do you get? What's in it for you?”

They shrugged in unison, which looked creepy. It was like they were holograms, copies of one another. Clones. Perry shuddered again, his eyes flickering to the door and back again. It was a few yards away, but it seems like miles.

“We just want to test you...” the Sisters said at the same time.

“Or else!” Ayri smirked.

“No...answers...no...questions...” Noz gasped.

Perry glanced at Jarvia again. She was watching the Sisters with an odd look on her face, as though she really didn't know what she was seeing. For once, she had no answers. And that was terrifying. Perry looked back at the Sisters, once again making the decision.

“Fine,” he said. His voice sounded shaky and hoarse, even to his own ears. “I accept.”

The two of them laughed loudly, which was never a good sign. One of them said something like, “Wait here, my lovelies”; whispered words in the air. And on that eerie note, the sisters temporarily disappeared.

The witch and the ghoul stared around them, blinking. They had no idea what they were supposed to be doing; the Sisters hadn't given them any time to even reconsider this strange “test” they were about to put Perry through. But here they were. Alone. Why was the room so damned cold? Perry was shaking from top to bottom. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, taking a deep breath of the lavender smell that still permeated it from his mother’s draw. His glance at Jarvia was anxious, his pupils large in the darkness.

“What do we do? Just wait here?” he asked, quiet in the cool atmosphere.

“I suppose,” she returned. “But if you hear any ominous chanting, the appropriate response would be to turn around and run.”

They returned a few moments later, carrying more candles to illuminate their faces and the objects they were holding in their hands. Noz was carrying a medium box in her hairy hands. It looked fairly ominous, lightly decorated with a silver skull in the centre. Ayri was carrying two candelabras, one in each hand. They were both lit with eerie green flames. Ayri placed the only sources of light down onto the counter at the front of the shop, but Noz continued forwards until she was standing right in front of Perry.

Noz bowed her head so that her face was hidden, and waited with a knowing smile for him to open the box. It was strange, but Perry had never experienced something like this before, something so wrong, ritualistic and unfamiliar. He'd come to the South Keep several times in the past, and they'd introduced the box before, but never with such ceremony. He rather felt as though he was an unknowing sacrifice, about to be thrown onto a table and stabbed to death for the second time. Perhaps he'd die here, and wake up in the next century. If it continued happening to him, he didn't think he'd be able to take it. Waking up and finding out everyone you knew was now dead or gone was not exactly one of the happiest experiences.

Swallowing nervously and extra aware of how dark and cold the room was, Perry reached out for the box. He almost expected Noz to move and scare him, perhaps grab his wrist or push him away from her. She didn't. All she did was stand there, with that same, large smile on her face, and that same emptiness in her expression, as he slowly placed his fingers on the box. 

“Should I open it?” he whispered, very conscious of being too loud in the silence.

Jarvia, who had absolutely no qualms with breaking the peace, boomed her reply: “Is this one of those times you'd like me to lie and tell you it's probably full of glitter and smiley faces so you don't start crying or something?” Despite the grandstanding, Perry could hear the slightest crack in her voice. Even Jarvia Knot was out of her element in the South Keep. In fact, Perry expected that the gods themselves would be cut down to size here.

“Yes,” he swallowed.

“Then by all means, open it. I'm sure it's probably full of glitter and smiley faces.”

He opened the box, and almost dropped it in surprise when he saw what was inside.

It was a glass. It wasn't just any glass, however. The glass contained a disgusting, sloppy-looking liquid, mostly greyish in colour, except for the unmistakable sight of blood trickled on the top of it. It was as though it was some sort of delicious milkshake with extra strawberry sauce. But it wasn't the actual drink that shocked him – he'd seen that before, and knew just exactly what it was. It was the eyeball floating at the top.

“Well,” Jarvia commented. “It's certainly not glitter.”

Perry looked up at the sisters in horror, his own eyes wide and confused.

“What the hell?” he asked. Panic started rising in him like vomit. “What's this?”

At least it explained Noz's grinning. Unfortunately, the two sisters were not going to be giving him any answers. Their expressions stayed the same; their positions didn't change. They stayed where they were, completely silent, waiting for him to do what they wanted him to do with stubborn resolution. They made it clear what they wanted even without any words. _Drink the drink and take the eye, or we will never help you again._

“I can't,” Perry wheezed. “I can't do it. I can't. I –there's an eye in it! What sort of sick, twisted joke are you two trying to play?”

Jarvia raised an eyebrow. As soon as he'd said the words, the sisters looked up at him, their heads moving in such perfect unison it was almost robotic. The sound of the door locking behind them sounded through the shop, shaking Perry to the core and warning him that these sisters were not going to let him go until he did as they asked. They weren't smiling now. They'd given him a test, and he was slowly failing.

“It seems that Big Brother is watching you,” Jarvia said darkly.

He could do this. He'd done it before, several times; the only difference this time was the eye. It actually looked like it came from a corpse, which was terrifying and strange. But Perry had dealt with terrifying and strange things before, and he felt suddenly determined to finish this, to get this over with so that he could get his answers. No one went to the South Keep without expecting to pay for their answers. Unfortunately, the Sisters knew exactly how to toy with their customers. He would find out why he was here if it killed him again. He would tear this world apart for those answers. It was the only way he would survive. This person was already dead; they didn't care whether or not he consumed them.

Taking a deep breath, Perry asked, “What is it? Which part of the body?”

Jarvia peered into the drink, sniffing and wrinkling her nose. “The hand. Or the arm. I can never tell with those two, since they're, y'know, connected and all.”

“The hand,” he repeated, nodding. “Right. So it's just a hand.” He caught Jarvia smirking, and scowled at her furiously. “If you make a single pun, I am going to throw you into a volcano.”

Perry reached for the glass, choosing not to think about what it was he was drinking, and tipped it back down his throat. Immediately, the eyeball touched his lips, teasing, trying to slide through into his mouth. He pursed his lips, clenching the fist that wasn't held around the glass and trying not to choke in disgust. He forced himself to continue gulping down the horrible grey mixture of flesh and crushed bone. He had to get it over with. So he swallowed, and he gulped, and he felt his intestines squirm in his torso like an unfed creature.

Drained, Perry slammed the glass down onto the table, refusing to look at the only thing left in it: the eye, which still stared at him disapprovingly. He imagined his mother wrapping him up in a warm blanket before a fire. A hot water bottle, a mug of cocoa. Happiness was being sick with his mother to help him get well; happiness was having someone fuss over him, having someone take a day out of work so they could cuddle up with him and watch the skyline, because they loved him, and they were family.

He could feel Jarvia watching him.

“You drank that fast for someone scared of their food looking at them,” she commented. The lightness in her tone, he knew, was meant to comfort. But right now, nothing could comfort him. He was floating in between humanity and monstrosity. He was no longer a boy of the 50s, smiling at comic books and dreaming of other worlds. He was a beast. He was a monster.

He was a ghoul.

“There,” Perry's voice was snappish, but he felt better than he had done in a couple of months now. Energised. He wanted to do something; he had a sudden need to kick a wall, to run a mile, to dance until he couldn’t breathe. “I've done your stupid test. Now, would you mind telling me what the hell that was about? Why put an eye in it? Where did you even get it?”

“It came from a client,” Ayri said, finally speaking and smiling normally.

“We killed her,” Noz agreed.

“Because it suited our needs.”

“And yours!” Noz giggled.

“So we thought, 'Why not?'” Ayri said.

“She ran over a six year old girl when she was a teenager. She didn't call the police.”

“The girl died.”

“So the woman deserved to die, too.”

“And she deserved to watch the man who was going to eat her soft, delicious flesh, boiled to perfection.”

To his surprise, Perry was not very shocked by this information. He didn't even feel that disturbed. It was late at night; despite his energy, his mind was spent. The whole day had been spent on soft discussions of what they would do, what they would say, when they met with the Sisters – he hated the very thought of them. He just wanted to go back to Jarvia's apartment and lose himself in dreams of home, of the family he'd lost.

“We wanted to test your resolve. To see whether or not you would dare do something so horrific in order to find your answers,” Noz said quietly. “We wanted to see how far you would go for your family.”

Perry scoffed. “Give me my damned answer,” he growled. “Who’s raising ghouls and why?”

“Ooh, isn't he rude!” Ayri cried, howling into the darkness – the candles had been blown out again, invisible waves of magic sweeping through the building. Their magic was stronger than any other. Theirs was the magic of rituals and of death. Theirs was the magic of gods. “Young man! The answer to your question...”

“Is hidden!” Noz snorted with laughter.

Ayri giggled: “ _To find the answers the ghoulie seeks:_  
_One hasn’t got far to look_!”

Noz laughed: “ _In the origin place where the dead man sneaks_  
_Lie the answers death took_.”

“What the hell?” Perry shouted. His fists were clenched at his sides; his body was shaking, though whether with cold or rage, he could no longer tell. “What sort of answer is that?”

But the Sisters were done helping him. He heard the clicking of the lock on the door behind him; creaking, it swung open. 

“The door is open, young man,” Ayri said, in a tone so pleasant it could almost be mistaken as sweet. “But remember this test. In the future, it will help. It will help you fight the Beast of Music.”

Noz nodded, though she was beginning to turn her back on the visitors. “Danger is coming, boy. Danger is coming, and as soon as you open the box containing it, no one will be safe.”

He didn't bother asking them what they meant, because by this point, he didn't care. He'd got what he came for. With a scowl on his face, Perry swung the door open, feeling the familiar fire of fury burning in his veins as he took a step into the freezing air.

“You said you wanted to see how far I would go for my family,” Perry said, not bothering to turn around and face them as he spoke.

“Yes?” the sisters asked in unison.

“I don't have a family,” he said simply.

They smiled, but Perry, already walking away, did not see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sisters would be fun at parties.  
> "What's in the punch?"  
> "Your friend Billy."
> 
> Perry has no idea what he's doing, but hey, a ghoul's gotta eat.

**Author's Note:**

> So! This story has been my book baby for a very, very long time. I started writing it in 2013, and since then it's had rewrite after rewrite after rewrite. This is the eighth (and hopefully final) draft. 
> 
> A quick warning: this story _does_ contain implied rape/non-con and abuse. If there's a chapter with any of this in it, I'll add a warning before the chapter.
> 
> Other than that, I hope you enjoy!


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